PGreenblog

Pictures At An Exhibition: Michael Maoz Kicks Some Intent-Driven Butt Into Gear

Got to see Michael Maoz (Gartner's superstar analyst) both hanging out and presenting at the SAP CRM Theater. Aside from just the sheer pleasure of seeing someone I count among my special friends, he did a GREAT job at the presentation, unveiling some new material on CRM and the social actions of the new customer. Some of his stuff was validating to me because it overlapped (with different verbal assignments) what I've been saying. Some of it was outright fascinating & I think he personally is onto something here. I'm going to summarize in about 200 words what he said for an hour so needless to say this will be the spare version. Gartner Research apparently found that CRM is THE top priority for businesses in 2008 - in part due to the economic difficulties - because people need to retain customers when the going is bad. but what was interesting is the different spins different segments have - for examples the biggest business issue is enhancing and retaining relationships with customers (8.1 on scale of 10) while #2 is tracking new customers (pay attention Business Objects!!) (8.0/10). When CEOs only were queried they thought that sales productivity (36%) and customer care (35%) were the #1 & #2 issues respectively - which for those of who think in a classically siloed way - are two of the three pillars of CRM. When IT was queried about their business expectations the number 1 for 2008 (and '07 & '06) was improving business processes and #2? Attracting & retaining customers. Innovation went from #10 in 2007 to #3 in 2008. He then went thorough a significant amount of other Gartner numbers of which, I'll let you in on a few more. The availability of channels for the customer has increased in both scope and complexity and what was fascinating is that as self-service via the web increased to 50% of channel activity in customer service in 2007, the parts of customer service that still relied on humans (e.g. contact center CSRs) found that it got far worse for them and even with all the new technologies and the reduction in the amount of human to human contact (though, for example, T-Mobile has 300 million incoming so I can't see that calls have been reduced THAT much), the attrition rate among CSRs is worse than ever. The reason? If someone goes to the extent of calling, given they can take care of many of their problems or queries via the web, they are REALLY REALLY mad. REALLY mad. Really....mad. The lesser problems have been solved online. See the theme here? Customers, customers, and, oh crap, yeah, all things related to customers. Which means that CRM is the #1 priority for us'n in 2008. But, and this was the kicker, as Michael said, his daughters don't know that. They do their purchasing due to what they are told to on Facebook. They ask their friends via Facebook, or MySpace or perhaps use the aggregators like FriendFeed to find out where to go tonight or the best place to get a bargain handbag or how to figure out a more complex purchase. All that "stuff" that companies are doing doesn't mean squat to them. He also pointed out in a very interesting way that he's had three varieties of Toyota SUV, or car or lux car (Lexus), and has been a committed Toyota customer for 10 years, but Toyota didn't grow with him so it couldn't make a suggestion about what might interest him. Why not? THEY DIDN'T KNOW. All they know is that he bought some cars for some reasons other than what they can fathom. In fact, I find this to be a HUGE problem with companies and a complex one to solve. How do you grow with the customers? Each of them grows differently and yet, if you knew, the likelihood of repurchase or of a new purchase or cross sell or whatever salesy terms you are comforted by, goes up exponentially because the emotional state attached to that knowledge and indication of that knowledge to the customer is that "hey, they CARE," or in a Sally Fieldsian way, "They like me. They REALLY like me." Procter & Gamble is the only company I'm aware of doing that "growing up with the customer" to some degree. They have a product called "Sparkle Body Spray" that in 2005 (long story with this that you should attend my classes to hear) was aimed at the 14-15 year old girl market and had a social site that was associated with the themes that you'd find with that age group. Contests, blogs with colors associated with the body spray (anti-perspirant) scents, putting together dream date and then emailing info or text messaging info to friends, etc. This was wildly successful, all word of mouth built with 12,000 unique visitors a week who averaged 25 minutes per visit on the site. But if you look at it now, when the girls are now around 17-18, the site is tied to another site "Because You're Hot" which has video dance contests that win you a JLo music video slot and surveys about the sexiest scent, etc. In other words, the site is growing up with its audience. (BTW, this is me, not Michael in that red paragraph. I don't want to put words in his mouth) He made the point that his kids and many others are moving to control their own experiences outside the channels provided by the company and this is an inevitable march. This peer to peer relationship, the external communities not in the control of the business, are all creating a new set of expectations which he identified as:

• 24/7 availability of services
• want to be needed, recognized
• Dialogue, experience control
• Give them, show them you have domain expertise

The optimal enterprise here would not be the current one which he called the function driven enterprise, but instead the "Intent-driven Enterprise." That is a company that knows not just what I want, but knows my intent - what are the reasons I want what I want, and what WILL I be interested in down the road - the knowledge of which they got from me, senor, senorita, senora customer. He then identified the top "functionality" requirements for the Intent-driven Enterprise:

1. It is in sync with evolving needs (key here is evolving)
2. It engages community opinions
3. It is reliable & trustworthy
4. It allows independent ratings
and
5. It uses "like type" comparisons (similar here to the Edelman Trust Index findings - the most trusted person I know is someone like me).

Because this is so complex, success can't be defined as good "suboptimal" results (good marketing, good sales, good service, etc.) but has to be defined as the engagement of an integrated ecosystem made available to the customer.

He (almost) closed with what I would call a perceptual model for the future customer. He said the customer had to have the illusion of free will, of the availability of multiple paths for exploration and of the means to achieve several goals with the business. While the business is needed to provide it, the business reality is that the paths are probably pre-determined, that there is one process that is truly available and that one goal is there for the customer. Michael wasn't advocating this, he was saying that's what the business reality is and probably will be. This is very much the same concept in a somewhat different framework that Joe Pine 2 advocates in "Authenticity" which is fake real in a manner of speaking. My take on this has been more benign since I don't think that fake ANYTHING is what needs to happen but I do think that you don't need to own luxury, you need to "feel luxurious." You know the old saying, "whatever floats your boat?" That is what I mean, but the business has to see it from what it costs them to make the boat that the customer wants to float, and no one in their right mind can argue this is wrong. I do think there is an optimal state possible, though. I think that the engagement of the entire ecosystem of the company for the customer opens up options for the customer that give them increased degrees of freedom while at the same time allowing the enterprise to execute its business plan successfully. Meaning a "real real" collaboration. Primarily because there are a lot of forces involved in an ecosystem - not just one company and one customer but multiple value chains associated with either the customer or the enterprise. What Michael (though not in this presentation, more in discussions) and I make abundantly clear in our own inimitable styles is that business value and customer value while sharing the word "value" are two very different ideas that have to work in conjunction for both the customer to get what he/she wants & the business to get what it wants.

Pay attention to this "intent-driven enterprise" thing - its important and this is the first I've seen it. I hope that Gartner gets on board with Michael's thinking here. It would do them well to be more than cursory about it. This is really good stuff.

Kicking It With Social CRM and Media in Plymouth Meeting PA

I've been doing my BPT thing with Chris Carfi, famous in the land of social media & the man who made social customer so popular a concept its almost slang, teaching a two day course on Social Media with only people from David's Bridal. As you may remember - or not - David's Bridal has been my client for six years and has several people who I literally love - and count among my dearest friends. So this is particularly sweet. Because Chris and my partner and bro' Bruce Culbert are also here, I get to teach about something I love to people I love with people I love. Not a bad gig. I DO feel luxurious here. Don't need the Lamborghini (though if you send me one I won't turn it down. Promise.). Got my friends to give me "the feeling."

Politics Online - 15th Annual, 600 Strong, First Class

I'm a political junkie. I admit and I've been politically sober for....ummm....a lot of years. Its important to admit it. I was in politics once and now I'm not but nothing gets the blood rushing to my head (you figure out which one) like political discourse and, with the rapid accession of technology and sudden interest in customer engagement a.k.a. constituent relationship management a.k.a. CRM (thank you, Barack Obama) and the revivification of a 60s-like environment in the U.S. its all good and exciting and I LOVE IT! For awhile now, I've had a spotty (but soon to be official) relationship - far less than I'd like - with the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet (IPDI), a think tank associated with George Washington University. In fact, I like these folks so much that I'm going to be the 2008 Practitioner Fellow for IPDI and I'm proud of that. They are concentrated on the application of web technologies and social constituent strategies to the electorate and I'm proud of being associated with the thinking. Which brings me to what I'm going to be jotting on here: The just finished 2008 Politics Online Conference.

Politics Online 2008 - Tipping Point or Tippling Point

On the balance, day 1 of the conference which was all I was able to attend due to work that I needed to do, was extraordinary with 600 of the most concerned, lively attendees I ever encountered. I have something of a political past and I saw a plethora of the idealist variety of politico - of course mixed in with the usual politic self-aggrandizing type who's in it for the "whatever they are in it for". But this is a younger crowd and IPDI brings that exuberance and social concern out - so that's who predominated. Exciting for an old child of the 60s like me - especially when I saw how they debated the issues that technology brought forth. My expectations on this were sky high and other than the opening plenary session, which I hated, it was amazing. I'll spend some time speaking to why I hated it and then more time telling you about the rest of the conference which more than made up for the "defensive contrarians" on the initial panel that opened the conference. Before I get into it, let me tell you that the work done by the Director of IPDI, Julie Barko Germany (and her staff and partners) was abso-friggin'-lutely spectacular. The level of conversation was something that was balm for the soul and fire for the heart - because it was typically (with some exceptions) about the application of technology for social good in the political realm. These were people who not only thought about the technology as cool but saw it as applicable to solving greater problems in the world - hunger, global warming, etc. They were Republicans, Democrats, representatives of every campaign, federal, state and local offices, party organizations and advocacy groups galore. There were technology vendors, of course, like Blue States Digital who seems to lead in developing state of the art political digital environments - though that is observation, not core analysis (that will come some time soon). But the discussion and buzz around how to utilize social media, CRM and social networks for campaigns, congressional offices, advocacy ad infinitum, was intense and bracing and fascinating and made one (me) want to roar back into action. So, as I listened to the plenary session in the AM, my dismay began to rise as I heard two academic elitists - meaning people who were more interested in defending their quirks and their positions by rising to the level of obnoxious than providing anything of value to the 600 eager listeners in the audience. What was horrible was the arrogance of all but the Google guy (former DNCer Bob Boorstin). I'm not going to give you their names but will call them the USC guy and the "So-Called Futurist." Their fundamental premises were cynical and they treated the audience with disrespect - and had little of value to say. For example, the USC guy bristled over one of the audience saying that 70% of internet traffic was porn and he almost yelled at the guy saying that this was untrue and that a recent USC study proved it was 40% - like that actually mattered. But even more was his assertion that with the rise of ubiquitous computing and the ability to increasingly personalize content delivery, he was afraid of "balkanization" - meaning that you would only receive the opinions and ideological statements and "stuff" that you wanted to hear - and he PROUDLY showed how noble he was with "I listen to Rush Limbaugh every day" - as if he deliberately exposed himself to dangerous toxins each day in the interests of free discourse and contrarian opinion maintenance and purity. While sitting there, I wondered what planet he lived on. Did he ever have sex with another person or go to a conference with 600 people or interact beyond third party communications? If you don't live 100% on the web and can't control all the activity that gets pushed to you AND you in fact, actually meet with other humans out there, then the odds of you never hearing opinions that aren't filtered toward your thinking are about ZERO. We are humans. We interact. We differ by a lot or a little but we differ - all of us. There is NO way his so-called "balkanization" can happen because we live in a society - and we will personalize all we want on the web and still hear contrarian thinking. Way the world works, bunky. The "So-Called-Futurist" was actually more offensive. He not only threw technology terms like WiMax and RFID at IPv6 at the audience without any clear explanation as things that will impact us greatly in the next 18 months but then got into this weird ubergeek discussion about trust, privacy, etc. that led him to say the best way to deal with these issues was by never joining social networks. He was SO proud of this. First, I doubt that the implementation of IPv6 or WiMax will be effectively even near complete within 18 months. For example, Sprint, who was the big pusher of WiMax and planned a 3 billion dollar investment, effectively withdrew that idea and investment sometime in the last few months because they began to see the issues that it brought up. While IPv6 is certainly the way to go, its impact won't be felt for awhile, because at the moment, there is a perception that we have sufficient room in the internet address space to hold on for a bit. He was saying what he was saying because he likes hardware and he likes to show off to audiences. His cynicism was blatant besides. His "I don't join social networks so I don't have to deal with issues" was no different in concept than a recluse who thinks the human species is 'dirty" and the best way to deal with it is to avoid it. Ugh.

But The Best Was Yet To Come - And It Did

Okay, that gets rid of the ONLY blight on this wonderful event. Because the rest of it more than made up for these misogynists. The bulk of the rest of the day was breakout sessions and I attended two and at the same time moderated one of them.

Going to School and Learning Something Important - Two Times In A Single Day

I attended two of the panels in breakout sessions - one on the development of mobile social applications and another on the application of social networking to political campaigns. While both were great, I want concentrate (for space and time reasons - though not the existential variety, the pragmatic - meaning I don't want this to be too long nor do I have much more time write it) on the latter not the former.

Social Networks - Political Campaigns

This panel was run by my friend and colleague, TechPresident blogger and key player at the Center for American Progress Alan Rosenblatt. Also, I might add a truly discerning drinker of single malt scotches. On his panel he had the social web jefes from Ron Paul's campaign, Rudi Guiliani's campaign, John Edwards' campaign, and a guy from Fred Thompson's campaign. As Alan pointed out, Clinton and Obama weren't there because that happened to be the day of the Ohio and Texas primaries so they were kind of tied up. This was packed and fascinating and buzzed the whole time. The discussion was about the application of social networks to campaigns and the lessons learned when it came to failures and successes in how to do them. Justine Lam, Ron Paul's key web strategist, pointed out that he had 84,000 Facebook friends, 106,000 Meetup connections and 109,000 MySpace friends and that level of connection was one of the key reasons that he was able to raise the kinds of funds he did - $20 million in the fourth quarter of 2007 for a campaign that couldn't win. She made the point that actually only Richardson and Obama built their own social networks (though I'm not sure that's the case) but they found that $1 million quotes to build one were too high so that they did more of a reach out and work with existing social networks. Many of Paul's supporters were already on the web - marginalized (her term, not mine) programmers and others who were Libertarians or anti-war Democrats or youth for whom "freedom" resonated as a message. The value of this was that by intersecting social networks of those who were likely to support him, the supporters took ownership of the campaign from the ground up. Guiliani's approach was too late and too little but there was a plan for social networks. The campaign developed a Team Rudy social application and the results were amazing - within a month email signups tripled and fundraising escalated to the point that at the nadir of the campaign (Jan 2008) they had their best fundraising month. But, as she pointed out, a bad message or bad strategy still trumps a web presence. The John Edwards campaign had a web strategy built around integration, interaction and accessibility. They were unique in their creativity too. THey sponsored a contest with Eventful that worked kind of like this

1. Demand Edwards on Eventful in your community
2. Ask Edwards question
3. Then based on Eventful numbers someone won and Edwards would directly and personally answer the question you asked.

Or something like that. They did events online with Elizabeth Edwards - so they were always accessible. There was one really interesting technology they used - Upscoop, a free tool from Rapleaf, that lets you upload your address book and then searches over 400 million profiles and tells you what social networks those friends in your address book are on. Doesn't do Outlook as far as I can tell. But THAT is really interesting and a great idea. I could take you on and on in this particular panel because it was invaluable and shows how important a campaign's use of a social web strategy was critical to any progress and was going to be more critical as time progressed.

Making Data Actionable, Dudes

I was the moderator of a panel that wasn't all that exciting by name, but ended up being very exciting due to the participants. They were:

1. Me
2. Bob Greenberg - President of GH International (a forty person company) and the leading homeland security consultant in the U.S. - with a strong focus around the use of social technologies in homeland security (and he's my brother)
3. Bruce Culbert, CEO of Isymmetry and the former head of BearingPoint's CRM and Supply Chain practices; creator of IBM E-business
4. Scott Rogers, Senior Director of Customer Initiatives at David's Bridal - a practitioner star
5. Thomas Vander Wal, the inventor of social tagging and President of InfoCloud Solutions - a Web 2.0 legend

We had about 40 attendees to the panel and the discussion was wide-ranging from Bruce identifying the key ways to think about data - one of which was making someone accountable for its use; to Bob discussing the Virtual Alabama use of Google Maps Enterprise Perpetual License as a core for this brilliant first responders site; to Thomas identifying how to use social tagging in a campaign; to Scott talking about how David's Bridal handled web complainants with specific strategies and criteria for action. There was a key discussion around microtargeting that bears some repetition because it was a theme throughout the day and a subject of some real interest, concern and occasional ire. For those of you who don't know what it is - it's the practice of granular targeting of a prospect so that a super-targeted highly personalized explicit message could be sent to the constituent OR so that a potential voting pattern could be uncovered. So for example, if I knew what scotch you drank, what books you read, what kind of house you lived in and what car you drove, I'd have a good chance of knowing who you'd vote for AND I could send you messages that reflected all those preferences. One thing that I pointed out, thanks to a discussion with Alan Fuller, a principal in Flat Creek Consulting is that if the culture of the political entity remains the same, then a microtargeted message is still just an outbound message shoved down someone's throat - the difference between refined and raw sugar. Microtargeting's value comes when it helps you understand your constituent in a way that allows you to serve them better - not spew on them more specifically. Social tagging is one tool that allows that granularity and exposes that knowledge but is in the hands of the constituent because its their tags that are the core of the granular knowledge.

Who Won?

There is no question that IPDI pulled off something that is vitally important to the future of politics in the U.S. Why? Because it embraced and started the dialogue on what is the most important issue facing a campaign - win or lose - or an elected official. How do you engage your constituent in an era where their expectations have dramatically changed. This is a conference that actually went a long way toward doing that - and focused on which technologies, strategies and cultures were critical for that success. This was honestly a case where the cynicism of a few was drowned in the enthusiasm of the many. The wisdom of this crowd of 600 prevailed. IPDI Rocks - exactly when it should

Random Thoughts on the Industry: Part Infinity, Part Finite

Force....uhhhh (Kings English = errrr)...force

Not surprisingly, as I rambled at Gartner a couple of weeks ago, salesforce.com was announcing (with George Lucas as the oh-so-clever-of-us speaker) Force.com, their Platform as a Service (PaaS). Of course, this contradicts my acronym, which gets me so mad. I called it Services as a Platform (SaaP) awhile back and while I suppose its a little niggling, they're probably more right than I am. Damn. But, its a big step, because with the announcement, George Lucas aside, salesforce is coming to the fore with the tools that they are deeming ready for prime time that will complete their "transition" from a CRM Salesforce Automation on demand company to a player in the world of platforms, that I'm constantly reminding you that I was predicting in the third edition of my book in 2004 and have been mentioning among these hallowed scrivenings for about 2 years or so now.

This is no trivial effort on salesforce's part. This isn't some marketing fluff. They have serious tools that are only limited by the fact that they are based on a proprietary programming "language" - the salesforce.com one (natch) - Apex. That is neither good nor bad on the surface. If it does the job and is flexible enough to provide SOA-based architectural delights that can integrate with non-Apex written "stuff" then hey, as those of us under 30 say, "its all good." That's "us" as in "not me."

SAP Goes "On Demand"

While all the salesforce.com stuff went on, so did SAP with the announcement of their midmarket on demand solution, Business by Design (which is a pretty cool name, incidentally) - making a leap that Henning Kagermann, SAP's CEO says is the one of the most important he's ever made. This is actually the first "true" on demand product that SAP is offering. I discount their hybrid product announced a couple of years ago to prevent salesforce.com encroachments on their customer base. This one is aggressive and puts it in the ballpark with, not salesforce, but actually NetSuite who is going after a similar sweet spot. This could be good and, while I haven't reviewed the product yet, at least I like their strategy here.

NetSuite Goes Vertical

But salesforce and SAP's machinations haven't stopped NetSuite one iota, as they prepare to go public - someday in the near future, whenever... They announced two new vertical editions, for the services industry and the wholesale/distribution industry, both very niche and both very smart, especially since they are attacking the upper end of the mid-market. They continue to make good decisions and build on what they provide best - a solid enteprise application service set. I only wish they added more customer collaboration features to their offering - but then again, I wish all the CRM vendors did.

Whenever You're Near Me I See a (Lotus) Symphony

I KNOW the line is I *HEAR* a symphony, okay? I'm taking liberties.

Lotus continues to surprise me with its release of Lotus Symphony a FREE full fledged office suite that is surprisingly feature rich and easily competes with Open Office. This is the first time that they gave it away. I can't remember the name of their previous personal productivity suite but I used to use it years ago, when I built Lotus Notes practices and it had a word processor named Ami Pro (or something like that). Thing is, Lotus is making a valiant effort at a resurgence that might work with the power of IBM behind it and the willingness (finally, it seems) of IBM to let Lotus be Lotus, something they hadn't done since their acquisition of Lotus in the mid-90s. Word is, from sources at the last Lotusphere, IBM took a back seat and let Lotus trumpet its new collaboration suites - like Lotus Connects and its integration of customer collaboration (all the 2.0 stuff) features with the 8.0 release of Lotus Notes and Domino. Sean Poulley, their VP of Business Development is doing a great job at the helm of this effort, even though I'm personally miffed at them (a little) for not getting a demo of Lotus Connects when I requested it and Sean actually set up a contact with someone there - a VP who shall remain unnamed - who just seemingly ignored me. That was kind of rude, but, know what, doesn't stop my overt admiration of them for aiming at providing tools to customers that will enhance their abilities to collaborate with the companies they love or don't love.

Symphony by itself is interesting but as part of this workplace/customer collaboration strategy is smart, smart stuff. Microsoft Live might have some serious competition from this somewhat unexpected quarter.

SugarCRM: Observations from the Deck

Had a great opportunity to meet SugarCRM customers in Miami last week, when I keynoted the Southeast Region SugarCRM: Acceleration Conference - around 65 hearty souls braving the Mayfair Resort and Spa's mid-80s heat to sacrifice themselves to come to a conference in luxury. I won't go into what I spoke about. I'm sure that you can guess by now. But several observations quickly.

1. SugarCRM has a very loyal customer and partner base, that, in the spirit of Open Source has done some remarkably creative things with the software and services. There are some great backstories about applications developed on the SugarCRM platform including one that I will cover in a later entry that actually allows patients/individuals to track their own health histories and records and correspondence in multiple ways. But I'll hold off on discussing it right now.
2. Mobile SugarCRM is here thanks to RIM and IEnterprise which provide the platform and the integration necessary to carry a VERY well done CRM application on the Blackberry, which after the CRM iPhone bakeoff, I'm utterly convinced, for now, is easily the way to go with mobileCRM.
3. SugarCRM 5.0 has dramatically increased the ease of development with the tools that it provides.
4. All in all, they are impressing me more with their tenacity, their constant improvement, the value of their model and their customers' loyalty. But they need to work HARD on that interface - its still ugly.

Technorati : CRM, Force.com, Lotus, NetSuite, SAP, Salesforce.com, SugarCRM

Gartner CRM: A Kinder, Gentler Assessment Part I, Day 1

I love seeing old friends. I get to hang with them and do stuff with them and have a drink and exchange family and business notes and see what the latest things they are doing are and all in all, having been around CRM a pretty long time at this point, I gots lots of people to see and hang out with.

That said, I don't like old knowledge or long time (already run through a good burr grinder) information. When I came to Gartner this year (which started today), I was wary about whether or not I was going to hear knowledge from the ancien regime or.....

I am happy to say, that while I recognized a fair chunk of the face, the clothes were nicer, the limbs and bodies were toned and the selection is considerably better than last year. Which means not only has Gartner apparently done its work, but they are starting to GET it.

First some numbers and a little bit of color. About 550 plus people, ranging from of course vendors to customers to analysts to people of unknown interests. Only salesforce.com and Netsuite don't seem to be here at least as far as the majors go - salesforce.com because Dreamforce is going on simultaneously and NetSuite, well, I'm not sure why they aren't here - though I'm sorry not to see them. Love those folks. But RightNow, Microsoft, SAP, Aplicor, Oracle, Neocase, SugarCRM and a myriad of others are well represented by booths and attendance and there is an exhibit hall, which is doubling as the place to chow down, a clever use of space in this lovely hotel - The Westin Diplomat in Hollywood FL.

The venue is gorgeous and convenient and right nearby are restaurants of serious quality and other ones that are great for football - Rivals the latter, and Nikki's Marina the former.

Interestingly the mood is low key but optimistic around here. I can't say its bursting with excitement or flair but the crowd is pretty much interested in furthering the CRM cause and also figuring out both how to use it and where to go. Coupled with that is a number of surrounding events related to the conference though not OF the conference such as the official launch of MyCRMCareer.com today - which I am thrilled to say - went off without a hitch. Gartner has been generous in working with MyCRMCareer to help the launch along and all the conference attendees are going to be able to become members and vendors can participate for the most part for free until the end of the year.

But enough on that for now. While much of what I heard, I've heard Gartner speak of before, there were a seriously interesting number of new kinds of presentations that not only acknowledged the changes in the world of business and itscustomers, but at least began to establish a methodology to both define a customer experience or establish the terms of the new business ecosystem. So for example, there were presentations on "Selling in a Web 2.0 World" and "Using Consumer Technology in Your Business." In fact, in the latter, the Gartner analyst, Isher Kaila clearly stated that the customers control the business environment, a very important concept that isn't often recognized by the analysts out there.

The attendees so far in conversation seem to be pretty happy with the content. One, a customer from a company who's name I had a hard time reading so don't remember, said that they had been taking copious notes on particularly how to deal with senior management when dealing with a CRM initiative.

One point, however, I heard twice during the day in two different presentations was an emphasis on using CRM to as a cost controller. While one of the analysts who said that indicated that this was something to basically tell the boss but not to really drive with because it would actually provide revenue benefit, the other seemed to think that this was some sort of driver for CRM - which I disagree with wholeheartedly. I don't even agree with setting a false expectation with the boss to get the project accepted, frankly. CRM is NEVER driven for any reason by its ability to save money. It can, but it may not. Its a costly ongoing programmatic initiative that benefits because it provides value to customers and in return receives value (in the form you hopefully are looking for) from customers.

Period.

In any case, that wasn't the primary focus of the conference. The trend toward customer experience and customer control of the ecosystem is really important here and that is day one in a nutshell.

I'm speaking this morning (day 2) at 7:30am and its 6:00am now so I've got to get ready. More later tonight and more detail. Unfortunately, I left a lot of my notes in a suite that Microsoft had after a meeting by Brad Wilson, so there are some details about yesterday I'm sure I"m forgetting. But I'll retrieve it later today and then if I did, let you know tonight.

Wish me luck.

Technorati : CRM, CRM 2.0, Customer Experience, Gartner Group

Face(Force) It! Salesforce Proves It Should Have Won the Steppin' Out Award! (Put in favoriite EMOTE here)

I'm not going to be at the salesforce.com annual gala, Dreamforce 2007 this year, because I'm heading out tomorrow for Gartner's CRM Conference where I'm the keynote at the power breakfast for the third straight year. I'm pumped for Gartner, because it is easily the most important CRM conference in the industry and I actually learn something there AND I get to see a lot of my friends. But I'm sorry I'm going to miss Dreamforce. For some reason, salesforce.com events are ALWAYS scheduled on days that someone has hired me to do something or that BPT is doing something so that I can't go.

Bummer.

I'm particularly sorry that I'm not attending Dreamforce because this is "The One That They Announce That They Are A Platform Not An Application" (Friends episode #12494949494) and also that one of their clever developers mashed up salesforce with Facebook and got the very coolly named "Faceforce." (What an AWESOME name - for some reason....). (BTW, the link is to CRM FYI, Jeff Grosse's blog and one well worth looking at)

This is another indication that salesforce gets it. The integration of an existing social network platform with their business platform is a great move - because it means that they are beginning to see that the new desktop is not just something to be used to work, but also used to communicate - for work or personal.

The best initial use of Faceforce is its integration with Ed Schlesinger's AppExchange service studentforce - which given Facebook's origins makes some real sense. Look below at the instance of it. How slick is that? The integration of salesforce and Facebook is seamless through studentforce and one that makes sense - TOTALLY. This should be a model for how CRM vendors are thinking about their own futures for a very simple reason.

The social networking revolution has been a social evolution that provides integrated light speed (fantastic barely subliminal plug) communications channels and interaction capabilities. It occurred without the business world - except to the extent that some companies provided the tools - often for free. That said, the social evolution has significant business impact. What makes Faceforce more than just a cool mashup is that it shows how business and peer to peer can be integrated without rancor and with some real potential value to both business and the peer groups that use them.

Go You NU!! (my alma matter - see my Facebook Profile. I'm the one in the Yankees hat. Surprise.)

A Brief Note on Gartner and, Ta Da, MyCRMCareer.com

I'm heading out to the Gartner CRM conference in Hollywood, Florida tomorrow. I'll be blogging from the conference when I'm not getting a serious CRM refresh at varying sessions and local watering holes. Watch for a daily blog. Also, watch for the announcement of MyCRMCareer.com's launch at Gartner. This is something that I have a financial interest through BPT's partial ownership of it but it is something that I truly think will play an important role in both the industry and in the way that vertically specific applications of social networks will progress. It is a career site (not a job board only) that is organized for CRM professionals with access to experts, job search, rich content, both incorporated and user generated, communities of interest and practice, etc. Now, these are not all features of the 1.0 version - some will be coming including a video blog by yours truly. But this is a vision that is realizable in the immediate future. In fact, even Nucleus Research's Rebecca Wetteman commented, in an article by Erika Morphy on this a couple of days ago, that " CRM-specific resources that can help people develop their careers, on the other hand, will be a welcome addition to the industry." So the promise is there. Check it out on this blog and elsewhere over the next few days

AND

check out my coverage of the conference - biting, scathing, cogent, and sexy. That's four words I like using, not the quality of my work.

Sigh.

Technorati : Enterprise 2.0, Facebook, Gartner, MyCRMCareer, com, faceforce, mashup, salesforce.com, social networks, studentforce

Singapore Does It Again

"Welcome, Mr. Greenberg."

Just three words and you realize that not only ain't CRM so bad after all, but that an entire country can practice it and once again remind you why can be in love - with something that's also good business.

Of course, I'm talking about my trip to Singapore again and once again, I'm completely in love - with an entire nation. Or is it a city? Or is it a city-state?

All of the above.

The only downside of Singapore is that it is so unbelievably far from Manassas that a round trip to and from is 20,000 miles and THAT, my customer-seeking buds, is a LOOOOONG way.

But, damn if it isn't worth it.

National Service Excellence Initiative Progress Report - EXCELLENTE

As many of you know from my prior reports on Singapore, in August 2005, Prime Minister Lee announced what remains a unique and amazing program - the National Service Excellence Initiative. In his speech calling upon every citizen to make sure that the customer experience for every citizen, ex-pat and foreigner was in his words, equated with that of the Ritz-Carleton. It had been about 20 months since I had been there last. It was apparent that they had been continuing the effort because in June of this year Accenture had announced that Singapore was number 1 in the world (with Canada number 2 and the United States number 3) for their superb national customer service. But getting an award from Accenture - a company that, honestly, isn't exactly a company known for their own wonderful service culture - is nowhere near the same as actually experiencing it and I was going to see how well it was doing - at least anecdotally - because I had the opportunity to travel there due to the good graces of SAP - who brought me over to address the Singaporean equivalent of SAPPHIRE - the SAP Summit. In fact, I had three speeches in 2 days. One to the SAP CxO luncheon at the conference and another to the general body. Then on August 1, my dear, dear friend, colleague, contributing author to CRM at the Speed of Light and CRM veteran big time, Mei Lin Fung (see her superb article at Greater China CRM on all that Singapore is doing to earn the title the best) had me speak to a gathering of 125 members of the PMO office after a smaller lively meeting with three members of the Permanent Secretary's Office.

A Shout Out to SAP

They really know how to put together a conference. Thanks to Alicia Woo, SAP senior marketing manager and event organizer extraordinaire, this conference (and how I was treated) didn't miss a single detail or a beat. Not a one. Alicia was the glue that held the whole thing together and what was amazing, she did it with a brief conversation here, a longer one there, a gesture and a look. Take them in combination and twenty five things were done. My engagements went off without a hitch.

I spoke to both audiences (ultimately all three) on the new wave CRM that focuses on customer engagement, not managing relationships with customers. This means something more concerned with how to capture the attention of customers using the contemporary methods and tools that the customers are already using. I did the CxO one first to roughly 70 or so senior people at a luncheon for them and while I got some solid kudos for that from the attendees, I wasn't totally happy with the presentation I gave.

I know. I always here I'm my hardest critic. But the reality is that I have to be my hardest critic. Look, in 45 minutes, I can't solve the problems of 55 companies and 15 government agencies by a speech I give. So as a speaker, all I can do is provide ideas that they can get excited about which comes when I can establish a coherent framework, make a strategic case, do it in a way that excites and fires the neural paths of the imagination and the passions of the desire to accomplish something. The ideas themselves, in the interest of the short time are high level but substantial enough to provide value. And, that means I have to be continously and serially coherent - AND focused in a framework. I do that, and people will get excited. I don't do that and they may get excited (though they may not) but I won't be satisfied.

No personal quarter taken. Leave no contextual prisoners.

At the end of the presentation two extraordinarily interesting things.

I had a conversation with Desmond T., who was part of the Ministry of Defense, who told me of their nascent efforts at blogging - a gasp-inducing revelation. Something that I intend to follow up on.

But my personal dissatisfaction lingered. I had the opportunity to chat with Tarun Mathur., President of ECnet a company that links its engine to procurement and other backoffice systems so they can operate in the environment they are comfortable with. Kind of the mirror end of what InvisibleCRM does.

(Whew. I'm gonna take a bit of a break now. I'm on the leg of my return from Tokyo to Washington D.C. and am starting to feel sleep deprived so its time to sleep. I'll pick this up at some ungodly hour later on this trip because I have a lot to. Another PG wordy entry. Listening to Hendrix on my iPhone)

Back. Just slept for hours. Feelin' jet lagged refreshed.

Now onto the story.

So I told Tarun that I wasn't happy with how things flowed at the CxO lunch. Again, I got feedback that said great, great, great, but I didn't love the way it flowed and I thold him that. He said, "well, i took a lot of notes, would you like my feedback?

Yup.

He sat with me for about 20 minutes and gave me some good insights which led to some good ideas and the afternoon, before a crowd of perhaps 600 or more attendees. I rolled through and did I what I always have to do with the rather shy Singaporean audiences. Watched their eyes closely to see how they are responding. I can't say for sure that eyes are windows to the soul, but they are windows to the responsiveness of the audience. I liked what I saw and if you see the blog entry I did before I left, I had a response before I ever got on the plane to come home. Take a look. So my new friend Tarun helped me quite a bit. Thanks, man.

SAP sent some good messages throughout the day and people such as Alicia Woo, Maggie Chua, and Ben Nottle were (and are) and pleasure to work with.

National Service Excellence - Singaporean Government

What is absolutely STRIKING about Singapore is the levels that the people of this country will go to so that anyone who touches the ground there to make them feel important, This is in addition to the beauty of the city's greenery and the remarkable growth that is evident everywhere, and the intelligence and electricity of the people. And their charm.

And, in public meetings, their shyness. In the three speeches I gave, there wasn't a single question. But their eyes "betrayed" their interest.

But the most striking thing of all was the government interest in how to apply CRM and how to deal with citizen engagement as their new strategy. This was a BIG, BIG leap.

When I was here a year and a half ago and did he a get together of multiple government agencies (17 in all), aside from being impressed with a few of them like the Land Transport Authority (LTA) who were doing some remarkable things and SPRING who were driving the National Service Excellence Initiative, I realized their was a long way to go when the first question I got was "why do we need CRM, we're the government?"

But what has become apparent is that this desire has come a long, long way. I'd say a good 25% of the SAP conference attendees were from government agencies. The DSTA (Defense Science and Technology Agency) was everywhere....I mean everywhere. Dozens of attendees from that agency alone.

It became even more apparent the next day when Alicia and I met with three members of the Permanent Secretary's office to discuss how to deal with the frequently activie citizenry - something quite similar to problems that the Congress has. But unlike Congress which doesn't seem at this point with a few exceptions to deal with it, The Permanant Secretary's Office seems to sincerely want to try to figure out how to solve this. The problem in a nutshell is that they are vociferous citizens, which means some of the best, but in a left-brained world, they are a serious budgetary drain that is paid for by taxpayers money. So the condundrum is how to take care of the 20% of the population that 100% of the population is paying for, so to speak. We came up with some suggestions in what I would have to call a short, but exceptionally lively meeting.

Then a speech to the Prime Minister's Office. I did the big picture, Mei Lin the "how to" in front of 125 (roughly) middle management staffers from the PMO. Again, only questions from email and the Internet - not from the crowd - a crowd response that is easy to get used to because a. its cultural and b. eyes still are windows to the engagement.

It's all so very cool. One interesting result, I'll be writing an article for Ethos Magazine's April issue (a publication of theCivil Service College) in Singapore.

But now the Mr. Greenberg story because of what it represents

The Story of A Nation in 2 Words

After about 21 hours of flying from Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. through Narita Airport in Tokyo, I landed at Changhi in Singapore. Before I got 50 feet I was greeted by Mark, part of Jet Quay (pronounced "key") who was there to shepherd me through immigration and get me into a taxi. He was a very friendly, intelligent and helpful person, making sure I understood the process, making sure that I had my luggage, making sure that life would be easy for me through the airport itself (which, given that I left at noon on the 29th of July and arrived at 11:55pm on the 30th, with a screwed up body clock, was REALLY welcome). He got my luggage while I got through a SLOOOOOW immigration line and I hopped into a Mercedes E200 and was driven to the Marine Mandarin Hotel by a friendly, well informed and interesting driver. As soon as I steppped out of the taxi, before the trunk was even open to get my luggage, I was greeted by a hotel attendant with, "Welcome Mr. Greenberg,"

Not "Welcome" or "Welcome sir" but "Welcome, Mr. Greenberg"

I was befuddled, trying figure out how he knew my name, given that my luggage tags weren't even showing yet.

I went into the hotel.

Another attendant came up along side me:

"Will you be needing help with your luggage, Mr. Greenberg?"

I headed to the reception/registration desk on the 4th floor of this contemporary beautiful hotel. Before I even hit the desk,

"Hello Mr. Greenberg, please step over here and let me take care of you."

There is an important lesson in customer value in all this, in addition to making me feel really, really good.

What if they said, "Welcome, sir." Will you be needing help with your luggage, sir?" or Hello, sir, please step over here and let me take of you."

Even though the utilitarian side would be exactly the same and the quality of the service processes and procedures would be no doubt superbly executed, the difference maker was "Mr. Greenberg" instead of "sir." That alone shows that value to the customer is very different than expected corporate value.

Value to a company is typically left brained - measurable profitability, revenue increases, cost efficiencies and the like. Value to a customer is NOT that. Value to a customer is beauty, creation, validation and attribution, a sense of community, etc. The effect of simply knowing my name rather than a generic sir gave me all three of those latter customer value attributes and it amounted to two words.

Mr. Greenberg.

So, imagine a whole country that is beautiful with green initiatives, and significant historical preservation programs, also committed in every way to being like the "Ritz Carleton."

That's what Singapore is like and they've made incalculable progress - both to my surprise and not to my surprise at all in the last 18-20 months. And they should be proud of it.

And the rest of the world? Learn from it.

We'll get the rest right there in time. For now, light years is pretty much the measure ahead they are in their progress.

You have to love that Mr. Mrs. Ms. Whatever Your Name Is. (Okay, I don't know how to do that with a blog yet. After Singapore a blogger mail merge just doesn't seem to cut it).

Take a trip there. You won't regret and you can learn all about a CRM initiative and the customer experience "process" without hiring some expensive consultant (like me) by showing up at some door at some hotel. Marine Mandarin for sure.

Technorati : National Service Excellence Initiative, SAP, Singapore

Singapore - See You There

Just a couple of things....

I'm heading off to Singapore today by way of Tokyo and will be there sometime tomorrow - actually closer to the day after. I'm speaking at an SAP "Sapphire-like" conference in Singapore twice - once to the CxOs at a luncheon - and then to the general body - on the new media stuff and will then be doing a similar presentation at the Prime Minister's Office the next day. Then back here.

When I get back, the CRM iPhone bakeoff will begin. Everyone seems to be onboard and assigning me accounts to get going. I'll keep you posted both from Singapore and when I get back.

Wish me luck.

    Technorati : Singapore, iPhone

Senor y Senoras y Senoritas....BOGOTA!!

What a trip....the most amazing and possibly the most disconcerting trip I've ever made - and one I would do again in a heartbeat.

Last week, I traveled to Bogota Colombia, to be one of the keynotes in a 2-day CRM gala event - the number 1 CRM Conference in Colombia, and possibly in all of South America- run by Rafael Rodriguez, a managing principal of Focused Management Inc., a CRM guru in his own right, a genuinely nice man, and a good friend and coordinated by the meticulous event planner, Diego Ramirez of Practica - easily the most organized event I ever attended.

Prior to coming to Bogota, I have to admit I had some trepidations. I mean, the stories of kidnapped Americanos and drug lords in Medellin and Cali didn't exactly excite me . But I really wanted to do this conference. I had planned on doing it last year, but there were some parental issues that took me out of the picture for that event.

So I went.

I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised and at the same time, the security was DEFINITELY top of mind of the entire country.

Let's get this part out of the way.

Signs of Security

1. From the moment you arrived at the Bogota airport to the moment you got back into the building, armed and unarmed uniformed security was ubiquitous. I mean it was everywhere. Security was as common as the visitors to this lovely country. There was such a contradistinction between tree lined boulevards and peaceful conversations and striding, walking, standing security that was clear and visible everywhere. I saw it at the airport, standing outside my hotel, the lovely Casa Dann Carleton, standing inside the hotel, at the conference door, on the streets randomly - though I'm sure not actually randomly.
2. The first night we went out to eat at Club Colombia. The food was excellent. I had a seafood stew made in coconut milk that was fantastic. We had a wide selection of Colombian dishes including their versions of empanadas and varying meats. We had desserts. We had a Chilean Casa Lapostelle that went well with whatever anyone ordered. All in all an amazing meal. BUT prior to the meal, we came to the restaurant in an armored car and I saw two truckloads of armed Colombian soldiers patrolling the streets in the 15 minutes it took us to get to the restaurant.
3. When I registered at the hotel, I was given my room card and all the requisite little advertising brochure/cards. One of them was a "be careful" set of reminders on how to act in Colombia to remain "secure."
4. When I left, I was given a card with the name of my taxi driver (Humberto - a wonderful guy) and his phone number and a bunch of other info. He had my info. The reason? It wasn't safe to just hail a taxi in Bogota, given the propensity of a small percentage of drivers to take you to places you probably don't want to go.
5. Finally, at the airport, there wasn't the single security point to go through but four of them - first, before you got to the ticket counter, then the standard security that we're all used to, then once you've passed through to the gate area and are walking down the corridor to the gate, there is a carry-on check and then at the gate before you can go sit in the gate lounge area, there is another security check. Four. Quatro. 4.

Okay, that's out of the way. Oddly, you feel quite safe because Colombia is taking its security situation seriously and I never once, other than observationally, thought about it. I didn't worry a bit, once I got there.

But the conference, ahhhh, the conference.....

CRM/CEM In Bogota: La Conferencia Fue Increíble (in English: The Conference Rocked!)

This was easily the best conference I ever spoke at, no insult intended to any of them in the past. There were 200 attendees - most in their 20s and 30s, some in their 40s and 50s - all with an electric intelligence that was manifested in multiple ways throughout the conference. There was constant discussion, serious interest in how CRM was changing, what the customer experience was like, how to measure all this. The questions were restless, they were well thought out, they were lively.

The format of the conference was a major speaker, then a case study, another major speaker, another case study and then a panel of the speakers from the day. It went for two days. So the lead speakers were Naras Eechambadi, President/CEO of Quaero, who I have spoken on extensively here; Bob Thompson, CEO and founder of CustomerThink, formerly CRMGuru, the world's largest online customer-centric community (150,000 subscribers), Rafael Rodriguez, the founder of FMI (see above) and arguably one of the, if not the, leader of CRM efforts in South America; Jay Curry, a pioneer in CRM and measurement, also, apocryphally the father of Adam Curry, creator of the podcast; and me. There were case studies from IBM and Grupo Aval, one of the largest bank groups in Colombia.

Each of the primary speakers had three hours. Seems like a lot but, personally, I ran out of time!!

What was amazing wasn't just the speakers - all of whom had a lot to contribute, but the intelligence of the audience. It was a nonstop question fest for two days. How do you measure the customer experience? What impact do customers have on the supply chain? Who would you say are the vendors who actually get the new world that we're moving into? How does one focus this around financial services? Does a CRM implementation take the new tools into account? Does workflow have an impact on measurement when it comes to how productive the managers and staff are with their customer-centric goals?

Ad infinitum.

This was also the best looking group of humans in a single place I ever saw. The women were gorgeous and the men were handsome and they all exuded an individual confidence that was both staggering and heartwarming to behold.

Which highlighted a really peculiar irony.

While it wasn't unusual to see a stunning young woman in her late 20s who was in a position of influence at a major Colombian corporation, or a 35 year old man running his own successful company in Colombia, there was this what we used to call a "little me" sense of national identity, though not of personal identity. The refrain I heard both days was, "well, Colombia is so far behind" or "all these new technologies and new business models are for aficionados, not for us generally." This attitude was prevalent.

After thinking about it, I decided to take it on head on in my presentation on the 2.0 world and the business models that are appropriate to it. I used Threadless as the polemic. Basically, my comments were along these lines.

"I've heard for the last two days that Colombia is 'behind' and that 'this new model is for aficianados.' I don't mean to be disrespectful, but that's not true. First, you complain about the infrastructure. Well, I'm using EDGE here in Bogota with my Blackberry and that is no different that what I have available to my Blackberry in the U.S. So the infrastructure is there. Second, Threadless, as I pointed out was formed by 4 college graduate students with an Internet connection. I've shown you that you have the Internet connection. Are you telling me you can't come up with four graduate students in the entire country?....You are the most electrifying intelligent audience I've ever dealt with, bar none. And, I'd have to say, the best looking. Thank you."

In a condensed fashion, that's what I said.

The fact is that the size of this conference, the enthusiastic interest shown by the 200 participants, and level of questions asked by this crowd points out the amazing possibilities for providing the customer-centric culture that will be necessary to lead Latin America to providing the kind of human "service excellence" committed to by only Singapore to date and by various individual agencies of government in the United States and the UK among others.

Colombia is ripe for Business 2.0.

But Then Again...So Is All of South America

And there is a coalition to prove it. While in Bogota I met with Eduardo Sanchez of Mass Digital, one of the largest interactive marketing firms in South America (I think he said second largest, though don't hold me to that). Oddly, Eduardo happened to work at El Tiempo, Colombia and one of South America's leading newspapers on their web presence seven years ago - and worked with Rafael Rodriguez there. Weird coincidence....though I've seen weirder --- stories for another time another place and another dimension. Eduardo is also the Colombian representative of a coalition of companies called CustomersForever that is providing CRM and social media services as a coalition throughout Latin America and also has an annual CRM Conference, CRMC CALA each year. They are a BPT Partners business partner for us in South America and represent a cutting edge for the Latin American nations CRM initiatives.

In other words, there is a lot of advanced CRM activity going on in South America and its exciting, vibrant, intelligent and very pretty too.

I hope they invite me back.

Soy un gran, muy gran, fan.

Technorati : Bogota, CRM, CRM 2.0, Travel

Nice Review I Must Say

Just found this review of CRM at the Speed of Light on a blog called Businessgyan written last December.

Written by Deepak Thandassery

Saturday, 16 December 2006

CRM - at the Speed of Light by Paul Greenberg Paul Greenbergs' CRM at the Speed of Light is an 670 page tome on CRM. It is one of the best books in the market for those who are about to implement CRM in their companies. It gives a birds' eye view on the entire spectrum of CRM from scratch - right from the definition of CRM, to how CRM is linked to to the other Business Management Processes (BPM) like Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP), Business Intelligence (BI), Sales Force Automation (SFA) and to the future of CRM. Paul Greenberg is one of the foremost gurus of CRM and this book is written in a very easy to read manner with a dash of humour thrown in. His knowledge of the subject and personal acquaintance of each CRM software and the founders is awesome. In each chapter he describes the best of breed tool in each segment like Business Intelligence and the nature of the company. Highly recommended for ever body in the CRM community and anybody who wants to implement CRM from scratch.

Thanks, Deepak

Technorati : Blogs, CRM, CRM 2.0, CRM at the Speed of Light, User Generated Content